F 45 
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Copy 1 



THE GREAT TORNADO 
^Of 1821= — 

IN NEW HAMPSHIRE 




Compiled and Edited 

By Fred W. Lamb 

Member of New Hampshire 
Historical Society 



MANCHESTER, N. H., 1 908 



T't: 



EDITORIAL NOTE. 



It has never seemed to me that an adequate account 
of the -Great Tornado," from its beginning to its end, has 
ever been compiled. This I have endeavored to accom- 
plisli in tlie following pages. In doing so I have been 
com])e]]ed to draw from many authorities, in the first 
and foremost of which I place Mr. Sidney Perley's inval- 
irahh -Historic Storms of ^^e^ England." From this, 
togetlKM' with an article m Volume I of the Collections of 
the A^ew Hampshire Historical Society and Jolm Hayward^s 
Xew England Txazetteer, T have drawn the basis of the fol- 
lowing pages, supplementing it with various items, notes, 
etc., from many other sources. 

The Compiler. 



p 

liJ 





FRED W. LAMB. 



THE GREAT TORXADO OF 1821. 
By Fred W. Lamb. 

The earh^ part of the month of September, 1821, was noted 
for being very stormy. On the third of the month a violent storm 
prevailed on the whole Atlantic coast in which many lives were 
lost and a great deal of propeity was destroyed. 

On the afternoon of Smiday, September 9, 1821, occurred 
the famous "tornado" in central New Hampshire. The day 
before had been very warm and Sunday was very warm and 
sultry, although the sun shone brightly. The wind blew from 
about the southwest until about six o'clock when a very black 
cloud was seen to rise in the north and the northwest, and as 
it passed in a southeasterly direction the hghtning was inces- 
sant. About half past six, the T\nnd suddenly changing to 
north, a j^ecuhar looking, brassy cloud was seen in the north- 
west. As it came nearer it was noted that a cylinder or 
inverted cone of vapor seemed to be siispended from it. It 
did not seem to have any very destructive force until reaching 
Cornish and Croydon. It passed from Croydon to Wendell or 
Sunajjee, then into New London, Sutton, over Kearsarge 
Mountain into Warner, finally ending its course in the edge of 
Boscawen. It Avas felt and is said to have commenced near 
Lake Champlain. One observer, a woman in Warner, stated 
that its appearance was that of a trumpet, the small end down- 
wards ; also like a great elephant's trunk let down out of 
heaven and moving slowly along. She stated that its apj^ear- 
ance and motion gave her a strong impression of life. When 
it had reached the easterly part of the town, she said the lower 
end aj^peared to be taken up from the earth and to bend around 
in a serpentine form until it passed behind a black cloud and 
disappeared. This view was from a distance of three miles. 
It was attended with but little rain in parts of its course, more 
in others. It lowered the water in a jiond in Warner three 



feet. The width of its track was from six rods to half a mile, 
changing with the height of the cloud which rose and fell. It 
was the widest on the higher grounds. Its force was the 
greatest when it was most compact. In Croydon, besides other 
damage, the house of Deacon Cooper was shattered, his bai-n 
and its contents entirely swept away. 

No other buildings were directly in its narrow path until it 
nearly reached Sunapee Lake. Here it came in contact with 
the buildings of John Harvey Huntoon of Wendell, now 
Sunapee. The house contained eight persons. The tornado, 
after a brief warning, was upon them, and the house and two 
barns were instantly thrown to the ground. One side of the 
house fell upon Mr. Huntoon and his wife, who were standing 
in the kitchen. The next moment it was blown away and 
dashed to pieces. Mrs. Huntoon was carried at least ten rods 
from the house. A child of eleven months was sleejiing on a 
bed in one room ; the dress it wore was soon after found in the 
lake one hundred and fifty rods from the house, but the child 
could not be found. The next Wednesday its mangled body 
was jiicked up on the shore of the lake whei-e it had been car- 
ried by the waves. The bedstead on which the child was 
sleeping was found in the woods eighty rods from the house, 
northerly and clear out of the track of the tornado. The other 
seven persons were injured but none fatally. Every tree in a 
forty acre lot of woodland was leveled with the ground. A 
bureau was blown across the lake two miles and with the excep- 
tion of the drawers was found half a mile beyond the water. 
A horse was dashed against a rock and killed. The feather 
bed upon which the child had been sleeping was carried to the 
town of Andover. A Mrs. Wheeler was living in another part 
of the house and when the cloud approached she took a child 
that was with her and fled to the cellar for protection, but was 
somewhat injured by falling bricks and timbers. Bricks were 
carried more than a hundred rods and pieces of the frame 
of the house, seven or eight inches square and twelve feet long, 
were carried eighty rods. Other pieces of furniture, casks and 
dead fowls were carried to a much greater distance and a large 
iron pot was found seven rods away. A pair of wheels was 



sepai'ated from the body of a cart, carried sixty rods and 
dashed to pieces, one of them having only two spokes left in 
it. The onl}' furniture found in the house was a kitchen chair. 
From the buildings the land rises about one hundred feet in a 
distance of fifty rods and then descends on the other side of 
the hill to the lake. A horse was blown up this rise a distance 
of fort}^ rods and was so much injured that he had to be killed. 
A doorpost made of beech, from Mr. Huntoon's barn, measur- 
ing eight by twelve inches and thirteen feet in length, was 
carried up the hill forty-four rods. A hemlock log, sixty feet 
long, three feet in diameter at the butt and nearly two feet at the 
top, was removed from its bed where it had been for years and 
carried by the wind six rods up the hill, passing on the way 
over two rocks, w^hich were only six feet from the place w^here 
the log was taken, each being seventeen inches high. It then 
struck a rock and was broken into two parts. The rise of land 
in the six rods was ten and one half feet. Not only were or- 
chards destroyed but some of the larger trees were torn up 
by the roots and carried from seventy to a hundred rods. 
After leaving Mr. Huntoon's farm the tornado proceeded a 
hundred rods further and blew down every tree in a tract of 
timber land of forty acres in area. A house and barn belong- 
ing to Isaac Eastman were much shattered but not entirely 
ruined. 

In 1869 Gen. Walter Ilarriman of Warner addressed a 
mass meeting in Painesville, O. At its close, an old gentle- 
man, his form bent with age, came forward and made himself 
known as ]Mr. Iluntoon, the father of the child destroyed in 
Wendell. He had left the shores of Sunapee Lake and the 
track of the tornado fifty years before and made his home in 
Ohio iSoon after this meeting with General Ilarriman he 
passed away. 

The incident of Mr. Huntoon's family was made the basis of 
a story entitled " The Fisherman of Lake Sunajjee," claimed by 
some to have been written by Charles Dickens and pidjUshed in 
Once a Weel\ a London, Eng., magazine for August 22, 1863, 
and reprinted in LitteVs Living A(je,'&Q\)temh^x 26, 1863. The 



following query ai^peared in the Bonton Tran.scrij'f, a few 
months ago, in regard to it : 

"la the Boston Herald of August 16, 1903, appeared an ar- 
ticle on Lake Sunapee, N. II. In this article and also in the 
booklet descriptive of a resort on this lake is the statement that 
Charles Dickens wrote a story, ' The Fisherman of Lake Suna- 
pee.' The tale had for its foundation a memorable cyclone 
which visited the lake in 1821, The incidents were related to 
Dickens on his visit to this country in 1842, and his story is 
said to have appeared in contemporaneous English and Ameri- 
can periodicals. Can some reader inform me where this story 
may be found ? r. n. s." 

This query I answered as follows . " A query appeared in 
Notes and Queries some weeks ago inquiring about the story 
entitled ' The Fisherman of Lake Sunapee,' said to have been 
written by Charles Dickens. The question was asked where 
said story might be found and whether or not he wrote it. I 
have located the story in a publication entitled Once a Weelx, 
published in London, England, in 1863, and also in the Living 
Age, but Dickens' name does not appear with it as the author, 
no name being given in either case. I have examined several 
editions of Dickens' works put out as complete editions, but 
find no such story included and no reference made to it in a 
Dickens dictionary which I have examined. Now will you 
please inform me what edition of Dickens it may be found in '? 
I wish to know positively that it was written by him." 

Then the Transcript editor answered us both as follows : 

"The above communication was referred to ]Mr. Edwin Fay 
Rice, the Boston collector of Dickensiana, Avho sends the fol- 
lowing letter : 

"'Did Charles Dickens write "The Fisherman of Lake Sun- 
apee " ? I have been asked this question three times within the 
year. In a thin pamphlet entitled "Soo-nipi [Indian for 
Sunapee] Park Lodge, Lake Sunapee, N. H.," I find the follow- 
ing: 

"'In September, 1821, Lake Sunapee was the scene of a his- 



torical cyclone. Starting on the south side of Grantham 
Mountain, it suddenly struck the east shore near Hastings, de- 
mohshed the house of llarvey IRmtoon, who, with his wife, on 
the way home from a walk, had taken shelter in a neighboring 
barn, whirled their infant into the lake, and strewed the frag- 
ments of their household goods in its swath on the way to 
Kearsarge. A feather bed was recovered over seventeen miles 
distant ; and the body of the babe, crushed beyond recognition, 
was taken a few days after from Job's Creek. This pathetic 
incident reached the ears of Dickens while on his visit to the 
United States in 1842, and furnished the subject of a tale, 
" The Fisherman of Lake Sunapee," which a})peared in a num- 
ber of contemporaneous English and American periodicals, and 
first gave fame to the Horicon of New Hampshire.' 

"With the above in mind, I have examined every American 
and English periodical in the Boston Public Library bearing 
date of 1842 and after, and find, as did your correspondent, 
the story in Once a Week for August 22, 1863, and in the Liv- 
ing Age for September 26, 1863. If written by Dickens in 
1842, and printed at that time, it is not probable, twenty-one 
years later, owing to the strained relations between Dickens 
and Bradbury and Evans, the proprietors of Once a Week, that 
the ' Fisherman ' would have been republished in their jour- 
nal had they known it to have been written l)y Dickens. It 
was owing to him that Household Words, jointly owned by 
Dickens, Bradbury, Evans, Wills and Forster, was discontinued 
in 1859. The trouble was due to the refusal of Punch, owned 
by Bradbury and Evans, to print certain statements concerning 
Dickens' domestic affairs. 

" Fre<lerick G. Kitton, in his ' Minor Writings of Charles 
Dickens, a Bibhography,' 1900, and his 'Old Lamps for New 
Ones, and other sketches and essays hitherto uncollected,' 
1897, makes no mention of the ' Fisherman,' neither can it be 
found in tlie Gadshill, considered the most comi)lete and final 
edition. A number of bibliographies, two quite recent, fail to 
give it. 

" With regard to the story. It was written by an English- 
man. It has the earmarks. It is based on the incidents given 



6 

in the Soo-nipi Park Lodge pamphlet. But to one famihar 
with the writings of Dickens it certainly lacks the Dickensian 
touch. I shall want something more definite than the state- 
ment of the compiler of the aforesaid pamphlet that Dickens 
wrote the story, and I will be glad if any one will tell me in 
which American or English periodical it was first published. I 
doubt if he was the author, and think it first appeared in Once 
a Week in 1863." 

To return to the tornado. From Wendell or Sunapee the 
tornado passed across Sunapee Lake in an inverted pyramidal 
column, drawing up vast quantities of water. Its appearance 
at this time was sublime. It seemed to be about twenty rods 
in diameter at the surface of the water, expanding on each 
side towards the heavens, its body very dark, with a great 
deal of lightning. Along the shore of the lake was a stone 
wall which the tornado struck, scattering the stones at various 
places. Some which weighed seventy pounds were carried 
more than two rods up a rise of at least four feet in that dis- 
tance. The shore of the lake was all covered over with tim- 
bers, boards, shingles, broken furniture and demolished build- 
ings, that had fallen from the cloud into the water and then 
been washed ashore. 

It next reached New London, the loss of pi'operty in this 
town being estimated at |9,000. No persons, however, lost 
their lives. John Davis' house and other buildings were en- 
tirely demolished, not a piece of timber or a board being left 
on the ground where the house stood, nor a brick remaining 
in its original ])lace in the chimney. A hearthstone which 
weighed seven or eight hundred pounds was removed from its 
bed and turned uj) on edge. All the furniture was swept 
away and destroyed and very little of it Avas ever found. The 
family were all away at the time. Josiah Davis had three 
barns blown away and his house much damaged. From a 
bureau standing in the corner of a room one drawer was taken 
and carried out of the window, with all it contained, and it 
was never found. 

Jonathan Ilerrick's house was unroofed, the windows were 



broken and much of the furniture and clothing was blown 
away. Nathan llerrick had a new two-story house frame 
nearly covered.. This was blown down, with two barns. Asa 
Gage's house was unroofed and two sheds carried away. 
Anthony Sargent had one barn torn to pieces, another iinroofed 
and two sheds blown away. Dea. Peter Sargent had a barn 
blown down, one unroofed and a shed torn to pieces. The 
Widow Harvey also had her house unroofed and a barn torn 
down. J. F. Sabin's barn was torn down. Levi Harvey's 
barn was blown to pieces, and he also had a sawmill torn 
down and 12,000 feet of boards in the mill yard carried away, 
a few of them being found in the Shaker Village in Canter- 
bury, thirty miles away. A gristmill was moved for some dis- 
tance and a hoghouse, containing a hog that weighed between 
three and four hundred pounds, was carried two rods and 
thrown upon the top of a stone wall, Avhen it fell to pieces 
and the hog walked away unhurt. 

The extent of the tornado in New London was about four 
miles, varying in width as the column rose and fell. In that 
area the timber on 330 acres of woodland was blown down. 
A pair of cart wheels, strongly bound with iron and nearly 
new, together with the tongue and axle to which they were 
attached, were carried ten rods, the tongue being broken off in 
the middle and all the spokes but two taken from one wheel 
and more than half knocked out from the other. 

One w-riter says that two more houses were destroyed and 
two others injured, that a cider mill was demolished and three 
sheds damaged. One cow was killed and several injured. 
Eight orchards were utterly swept away, most of the trees 
being torn up by the roots. The trunk of one of these, 
divested of all its principal branches, was found a half mile 
away at the top of a long hill. A piece of timber, apparently 
part of a beam of a barn, ten inches stpiare and ten or twelve 
feet long, was carried up the same hill for a distance of a quar- 
ter of a mile. Near the top of the hill was found an excava- 
tion some forty feet in length and in places from two to three 
feet deep partly filled with broken boards and timbers, having 



8 

apparently been made by the fall of a side of a barn that must 
have been blown whole at least a quarter of a mile. A birch 
tree, whose trunk was ten inches in diameter, was blown across 
the lake, which at that place Avas nearly two miles wide, to a 
point ten or twelve rods , beyond. The most amazing feat of 
the wind, however, was the rending of a large rock one hun- 
dred feet long, fifty feet wide and tw^enty feet higli, into two 
pieces, which were thrown twenty feet apart. 

The tornado then swept through Sutton, doing considerable 
injury, though few houses were in its path. It then passed over 
Kearsarge Mountain at a point about two miles soutli of the high- 
est peak and swept down the other side into the valley, known 
as Kearsarge Gore at that time, in the town of Warner. It 
seemed to split into two columns in passing over the mountain, 
the columns again joining into one as it reached the descent 
into the Gore. There were seven dwelling houses in this val- 
ley. The cloud could not be seen until it was driving down 
upon them with great speed. The first building struck was 
the barn of William llarwood, which was instantly carried 
away. Then the wind injured the houses of JNl. F. Goodwin, 
James Ferrin and Abner Watkins, completely destroying Mr. 
Ferrin's barn and unroofing that of Mr. Watkins. Five barns 
were entirely destroyed. The late Stephen N. Ferrin of 
Warner said that on a fence were perched a flock of turkeys 
more than half grown, about fifteen in number. These were 
caught up and whirled away and no trace of any one of them 
could ever be found afterwards. 

Daniel Savory's house stood right in the path of the tornado. 
Hearing a fearful rumbling in the heavens, Samuel Savory (the 
writer's great-great-grandfather and father of Daniel, who was 
away), aged 72, hastened upstairs to close the windows. The 
women of the household started to his assistance, when the 
house whirled al)ove their heads and instantly rose into the air, 
while that Avhich was left behind, timber, bricks, etc., literally 
"buried six of the family in the ruins. The body of the aged 
-father, Samuel Savory, Avas found at a distance of six rods 
from the house, Avhere his head had V)een dashed against a 
stone and he had been instantlv killed. Mrs. Elizabeth Savory, 



his wife, was very mucli injured ))y the timbers which fell u])oa 
her. Mrs. Daniel Savory was fearfully hruised. She had just 
taken an infant, Emily 1)., out of a cradle and the child was 
killed in her arms. Tlie writer now owns this cradle which is 
in his possession. The family was extricated by the assistance 
of the elder Mrs. Savory, who though very considerably injured 
had the most sur})rising strength in removing timbers and 
bricks, beneath which could be faintly heard the cries and 
moans of the sufferers. The other children, Laura little, 
Leonard X. and Jesse, escaped without much injury. 

Daniel Savory's buildings were not only leveled, but the 
materials and contents were dashed into ten thousand pieces 
and scattered in every direction. Carts, wagons, sleighs, sleds, 
plows were carried a considerable distance and were so broken 
and shattered as to be fit only for fuel. Stone walls were lev- 
eled and rocks weighing four or five hundred pounds were 
taken up out of their beds by the force of the wind. An elm 
tree, near where old Mr. Savory fell, that measured from a foot 
to eighteen inches in diameter and was too strongly rooted to 
yield, was twisted Uke a withe to the ground and lay prostrate 
hke a wilted weed. Logs that were bedded in the ground, 
tifty to sixty-five feet long, were not heavy enough to retain 
their places. Not an apple or forest tree was left standing. 
Only a part of the floor and some bricks remained to mark 
the site. 

The house of Robert Savory, brother of Daniel, stood very 
near this place and that was also utterly demohshed. ]\Irs. 
Robert Savory said that she anticipated a shower and went into 
a bedroom to take up a child and was conscious of nothing 
more till she found herself among timbers and ruins, greatly 
bruised but the child unhurt, her husband buried altogether in 
in the bricks with the exception of his head, and two children 
completely covered by the splinters and rubbish. This family 
of eight persons were all Imrt but none dangerously. Two 
girls, Charlotte and Ruth Goodwin, were in the house at the 
time and were severely hurt. 

There were twenty-four hives of bees at the Robert Savory 



10 

place, probably the property of both families. The ground 
was sweetened with honey for half a mile, but no hive nor 
sign of a bee was ever seen afterwards. Furniture and crock- 
ery Avere smashed and scattered about everywhere, as were 
also the wings, legs and heads of fowls. Several acres of corn 
and potatoes were swept off clean, not leaving an ear, save at 
some distance a few in heaps. One barn was taken up whole 
and after being carried several rods, went to pieces and flew 
like feathers in every direction. The Savorys and Abner 
Watkins had captured a bear and chained him to a sill of Rob- 
ert Savory's barn. Thoitgh the barn was entirely destroyed 
to its foundation, the sill to which the bear was chained, being 
a cross sill and bedded into the ground, remained in its place 
and the bear was unhurt. 

" No person could conceive, Avithout visiting the spot, the 
horrors of that instant — it was but an instant — when houses, 
barns, trees, fences, fowls, etc., were all lifted from the earth 
into the bosom of the whirlwind, and anon dashed into a thou- 
sand pieces ; a few large stones remaining in their places, and 
others strewed on each side for several feet, indicated Avhere a 
stone wall had stood ; a few fragments of timber and a small 
quantity of hay, Avhicli had since been gathered together, denoted 
the place where stood the barns ; a few timbers and bricks and 
at one place the floor remained of Avhat composed the dwellings 
of the two Savorys ; and the feathers here and there discov- 
ered in the dust showed that the very fowls of heaven that 
had often sported Avitli the clouds could not fly the swift 
destruction." 

About a half mile from the Savory houses, u}) a rise of the 
hill, lived John Palmer. lie had stepped out of his door when 
the cloud came over the mountain, filling the air full of trees, 
branches, etc. He started to enter the house but the wind 
forced ^the door to, catching his arm, and at the same minute 
the house Avas caught in the tornado. The chimney gave Avay, 
a part of the frame of the house burying Mrs. Phebe Palmer, 
the owner's wife, under the bricks and timbers as she Avas trying 
to force open the door Avhicli held her husband. She Avas 
quite severely injured, l)ut the rest of the family escaped Avith 



11 

8lio;lit injuries. Bridges in this vicinity made of logs Mere 
scattered in every direction. Rocks, some of which weighed 
five hundred pounds or over, Avere moved several feet and 
a hemlock log sixty feet in length, half buried in the earth, 
was taken from its bed and carried six rods forw^ard, while a 
knot from the same log was carried fifteen ])aces back and 
driven with great force tw^o feet under the turf. 

The tornado then passed over a spur of the mountain about 
two miles from the Palmer house and SAvept down on the other 
side about a hundred feet, violently striking the house and other 
buildings of Peter Flanders. The house was so located that the 
family had no Avarning of the terrible event until it was upon 
them. All of the family, seven in number, were more or less 
injured. Mr. Flanders was dangerously hurt and his wife 
almost as severely. For several days he was not expected to 
live, biit he finally recovered. Their daughter Mary had one 
of her arms broken and was somewhat bruised. The widow 
Colby, who was in the house, was somewhat injured. ]Mr. 
Flanders' daughter Phebe, only three years old, Avas carried 
from the house on her bed asleep, but Avas badly hurt, and 
another child by the name of True Avas slightly injured. Lorn 
Hannah, a girl Avho lived Avith the family, Avas severely hurt. 
Mr. Flanders' infant child and a Miss Anna Richardson Avere 
killed. Everything belonging to Mr. Flanders, his buildings, 
furniture, crops, etc., Avas destroyed. Mr. Flanders stated that 
the family had been baking and the bricks were hot; the 
chimney falling on three of the children so injured one of them 
that she died that night, and so burned another, a boy of five 
years, about the legs that the wounds did not fully heal for seven 
years and he Avas made a cripi)le through life. At the time the 
tornado struck Mr. Flanders' house he was standing at the 
west of the chimney by the jamb and close to the cellar door. 
His son True Avas standing in front of the fireplace. The child 
Phebe Avas asleep on the bed and Mrs. Flanders and Miss Rich- 
ardson were east of the chimney. The buildings being borne 
completely aAvay, Mr. Flanders Avas found Avith his feet partly 
down the cellar stairs, partially paralyzed, from Avhich shock he 
did not recover for some six months. The girl, Phebe, Avas 



12 

carried with the feather bed and dropi)ed some rods from the 
house and one arm was broken. Mrs. Flanders was thrown to 
the Hoor witli ]Miss Richardson on top of her and a lai-ge stick 
of timber on top of Miss Richardson, whose arms and legs were 
broken and who received other injuries from which she died in 
half an hour. ]\[iss Richardson resided over a mile away on the 
road to the Kearsarge Gore and was at Mr. Flanders' to get 
some milk. 

A few rods from the Flanders house, over the town line in 
Salisbury, lived Joseph True. Seven persons were in this 
house when it was struck by the tornado, and all of them, 
except two children, were wonderfully preserved. Mrs. True's 
parents, of the name of Jones, who lived about half a mile 
away, were there on a visit, and the family had just left the 
tea-table. Mr. True and Mr. Jones w^ere at the door, and see- 
ing the cloud approaching, were soon convinced that it meant 
disaster. Mr. True gave the alarm to his family, and then ran 
under one end of his shop, which stood a short distance from 
the door of the house, on one side of the path of the tornado, 
and he was therefore saved. Mr. Jones stood still till the 
wind struck the barn, a few rods northwest of him, and he 
saw the fragments of it flying thick in the air above him, then 
threw himself upon the ground by a pile of heavy wood. A 
moment later a rafter fell endwise close to him, entering the 
ground to the depth of one or two feet, the other end falling 
on the pile of wood and protecting him from a beam that 
grazed down upon the rafter inmiediately after and lay at 
his feet, but he was unhurt. 

Of the house, which was new, not a timber remained upon 
the foundation. It was blown into fragments and scattered 
to the winds. The cellar stairs even were carried away, and 
the hearth, which was made of the brick tiles of the time, eight 
inches square, was removed. The In-icks of the chimney were 
scattered along the ground for some distance, partially cover- 
ing Mrs. True a foot in depth. The oven in the chimney had 
been heated, and some brown bread was being baked when 
the tornado struck the house. The bricks were hot, and Mrs. 
True was badly burned by them. Mrs. Jones .was also burned. 



13 

Of the children, Caleb and Joseph were badly hurt and Mary 
Sally was greatly bruised and burned. Piercing shrieks and 
cries from two others, who were ten or twelve years old, called 
their father to a pile of hot bricks, which he removed as quickly 
as possible, burning his fingers to the bone in doing so, and 
they were taken out alive, but suffering intensely from burns 
and bruises. One of them was so disfigured as hardly to be 
known, and after suffering extremely for several weeks, died. 
The baby was found lying safe upon the ground underneath a 
sleigh bottom, al>out ten rods from the site of the house. 

When the wind struck the buildings the sleigh was in the 
barn, which stood six or eight rods north from the house, and 
it is interesting to note that the child and the sleigh should 
meet at exactly the same place. The top of the sleigh could 
not be found. The materials of the buildings were not simply 
separated, but were broken, splintered and reduced to kindling 
and scattered like chaff over the region. It was the same 
with beds and bedding, bureaus, chairs, tables, etc. A loom 
was, to all appearances, carried whole about forty rods, and 
then dashed into pieces. Nearly all of Mr. True's property 
was destroyed. One or two other occuj^ied buildings in the 
neighborhood were somewhat injured. 

In one place, near Deacon True's, a hemlock log, 2i feet 
through and 36 feet long and nearly half buried in the earth, 
was ilioved one or two rods. At another place, two hemlock 
logs of the same size with the other, one 65 feet long and the 
other about forty, were removed about twelve feet and left in 
the same situation as before. The entire top of one of the 
chimneys was carried 10 rods and the bricks left together on 
one spot. The width of the desolation here was about twenty 
or twenty-five rods. On the higher grounds over which it 
passed it was 40, 50, or 60 rods. The deeper the valley, the 
narrower and more violent was the current of the wind. 

The tornado then passed into Warner again, tearing down 
a barn. It went over Bagley's Pond, the waters of which 
seemed to be drawn up into the center of the cloud. It 
destroyed the house of a ]\Ir. Morrill, near the Boscawen 
line. When the tornado reached the woods of Boscawen, the 



14 

terrible arm that had reached down to the earth was lifted up 
and did no further damage, passing out of sight behind a black 
cloud. 

As a contribution for the relief of the sufferers, sundry arti- 
cles were sent from the Shakers to Benjamin Evans, Esq., and 
by him divided. The value of these Shaker goods was esti- 
mated to be $134.72. Various other sums were received and 
divided by the committee from time to time, amounting alto- 
gether to the sum of $501.04. 

The amount of damage suffered by this tornado was ap- 
praised to each in Warner and Salisbury and a subscription in 
the several towns was raised for their relief, Salisbury giving 
the sura of $174.54. The following are the names of the 
sufferers by the tornado in Warner and Salisbury, with the 
amounts lost as appraised in dollars by the committee: 

Foster Goodwin, $43; William Harwood, $75 : James Fer- 
rin, $194 ; Samuel Tiller, $5 ; Lorra Little, $20 ; Ruth Good- 
win, $6; Charlotte Goodwin, $6; Abner Watkin, Jr., $350; 
Widow Savory, $100; Daniel Savory, $675; Robert Savory, 
$775 ; John J. Palmer, $100 ; Joseph True, $800 ; Peter Flan- 
ders, $758; Jonathan Morrill, $85; Ezekiel Flanders, $30; 
Benjamin and Jesse Little, $200 ; James B. Straw, $50 ; 
IS^athaniel Greeley, $100; Moses Stevens, $10; Jabez True, 
$100; Enoch Morrill, $20; Michael Bartlett, $10; W. Hunt- 
ington, $20. 

My authorities for the account of the tornado are found in 
the following list : 

" Historic Storms of New England," by Sidney Perley. 

"Collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society," 
Vol. 1. 

" History of Warner, N. H.," by Walter Harriman. 

" The New England Gazetteer," by John Hayward. 

" The History of SaUsbury, N. H.," by John J. Dearborn. 

" The History of the Town of Henniker," by Leander W. 
Cogswell. 

"The Granite Monthly," Vol. 15. Article by Howard M. 
Cook. 



15 

"A History of the Town of New London, 1779-1899," by 
M. ]]. Lord. 

"Collections of the New Hampshire Historical Society," 
Vol. 3. Article on Warner, N. PL, by Dr. Moses Long. 

" History of New Hampshire," by John N. McCUntock. 

Also some traditionary accounts from j^rivate sources. 



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